War without End
by two lls
Summary: Fear is a war within itself, something to understand and battle against. Heroism is part of that journey. But fear can lead us deep into darkness also...
1. Chapter 1

_This is a 3 part short story - i'll be posting it up each week, over three weeks! Its a bit different for me, certainly experimental!! Enjoy!_

Part 1

'…_**Without darkness,**_

_**Nothing comes to birth,**_

**As without light**

_**Nothing flowers.'**_

_I see my brother's fall._

_I see my brothers fail._

_I am awash in their blood and drowning in a strange, alien feeling that tramples upon my spirit like a falling mountain – could it be fear? But I shall know no fear, I shall…_

He lay face down in sodden ground. His armour weighted so much so that he had sunk deep into the water-drenched mud. His superhuman mind fired into life, pumping blood through his body at a startling rate and demisting his dream-memories.

The battle… the vicious fighting… _brother against brother…_

With effort, he drew his arms into his body through the viscous mud; his damaged power armour motors whining as he did so. As he moved the standing water around him sloshed lazily over his helmet, blurring his groggy vision. Already he knew the haziness would pass soon – his internal HUD display had calculated the damage to him and his armour. He would live, and so would his ancient armour after a day with a tech-marine.

He pulled himself out of the ground, his armours' servos whining against the suction. Finally he stood, his and looked across the desolate, flooded landscape around him.

The dreadful aftermath of a ferocious battle surrounded him. Bodies, abandoned equipment, discarded weapons, smoking tanks, and other such horrors spread out for miles – all he heard, hauntingly, was an absence of life. A silence that would overwhelm any normal human. The faint green tinge to the scene as he looked out from his helmet display gave it a ghostly feel, and so he slowly unhooked it, wanting to see the damaged land with his own eyes. His internal air filters hissed as he pulled his helmet free, and abruptly he breathed the actual air of this world. It had a heavy, sweet taste, but it was tainted. The bodies of the fallen littered the wasteland in every direction and their smell filled his sensitive nostrils.

Menacing, rain-laden clouds smothered the sky, casting a deep gloom and dark shadows. He clipped the helmet to his utility belt, and checked his chronometer, realising that there was only an hour of light left.

How long had he been unconscious? What had happened to him? So many questions filled his thoughts, but he seemed certain of one thing: His brothers were dead. Everywhere they lay, partially concealed in the flooded ground. But _he_ saw them – _he_ knew they were there.

In the distance, his enhanced eyes sought out any indication of where the enemy lay. His battle brothers needed to be avenged. He needed to fulfil his Oath of Battle – so far, he had failed. What would He think?

A trail of smoke could be seen in the distance.

_Good. _Now all he needed was his weapons, his tools of vengeance.

Then the hunt would begin.

'_**When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honour scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.'**_

*

'_**Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.'**_

Aspin Wier looked fearfully out of his makeshift hiding place. The devastation was total. He had never seen such bloodshed, such wanton slaughter before in his life. He had grew up fighting in the violent streets and tunnels of the Hive, but this… this was truly war.

Already, his shattered mind had forgotten most of the details, merely remembering frayed feelings and thumping white noise. Gharn, Red, and Butcher… all dead, their life's torn away from them like they were sump-flies being swatted by giants.

His mother lay beside him, whimpering fearfully in her drug-induced sleep. He looked away from his surroundings, down toward his mother, the wound in her chest stood out like a dark black stain on pure white cloth, a visible cancer. He turned away, the sight too painful.

Fren was taking his merry time of it. He had been gone over an hour now, looking for some form of transport. They had been sure something could be salvaged from the battlefield. There had been hundreds, no, thousands of warriors battling for their very lives – it was a good bet something could be salvaged.

Aspin and his mother's gang had fled the Hive as the war descended upon them, using every contact and slippery deal they could to escape – hoping to find another Hive, or somewhere safe to continue living. Instead, they found themselves fighting for survival amidst an open battle. They had been part of a massive refugee convoy that came under attack from the enemy. The enemy…

Who were the real enemies? Ever since the outbreak of war, he had heard horrible, sibilant whisperings in his mind – as if something poked and prodded his mind. He ignored the creeping madness, pushing it out of his thoughts.

'Aspin,' someone said. 'Aspin!'

He turned from his guard position, trying to block the image of his wounded mother before him, and looked for the speaker. May appeared from out of the dull, shadowy rear of the troop carrier they sheltered in, its remains still smouldering in parts. 'What?'

'We need to move soon,' the young ganger girl stated, 'the others are desperate, and scared.'

He sighed. He shouldn't be dealing with this. He was barely even an adult, and anyway, most of the hundred or so survivors were not even part of the gang. But mother had took everyone under her protection – a time of war and all that…

'We'll give Fren a while longer, then we'll go.'

'Aspin,' May started, 'we don't have time. What if more of them are around?'

_Them_. The word stung. If more of the beasts found the survivors they were done for.

Aspin Wier shuddered, immediately trying to hide his discomfort from the girl. They had been lucky so far – only by the grace of the Emperor had they survived being caught up in an apocalyptic battle. Now all they had to do was find a way free, a way to find safety.

_We can save you, _came the whispers in his mind. _We can help…_

He blocked out the voices, shrugging off the flaring pain, steeling himself as he caught a glimpse of his wounded mother. What would come of them? What could happen next?

Fear held him in its icy grasp, and he quailed before it.

'_**Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive -- the risk to be alive and express what we really are.**__**'**_

_Quotes from:_

_Don Miguel Ruiz, May Sarton, Marilyn Ferguson and __Robert Green Ingersoll_


	2. Final part

Hey, this is the conclusion to the story, any reviews welcome!!!

'_**The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough.'**_

He trudged through the sodden field of battle, anger helping him push forward. He knew, deep down, that such emotions needed to be held in check – there was a time, a place. His mind was a smoky miasma of shadowed corners, never clear, always hiding its mysteries. A world of dream-mirrors – where he could only look upon hazy glimpses of his memories, and their meanings were just out-with his grasp. He knew something had hit him hard, and there had been an explosion… maybe his flesh was failing, his Astartes frame finally succumbing to the ravages of lifelong war, and he was somehow damaged?

He could not even remember his name. But what did that matter? He was part of something more than a personalised name. He was a Space Marine, and his battle-brothers lay dead upon the field of battle. Maybe he was the final member of his Chapter. His Chapter…

His feet finally found more solid ground, and he quickened his pace, leaping over a group of mangled corpses. He barely noticed the bloodied bodies, as they lay motionless in crimson pools, his eyes now firmly gazing into the middle distance, hunting for his prey. The enemy were close. He could finally see outlines of them – blasted murderers of his brothers.

He firmly held the two weapons he had found in each gloved hand – a bolt pistol and chainsword. Their weight felt good in his grip, and he drove himself further onwards, breaking into a run. Each weapon had different swishing sounds as they passed his head. It eased his mind.

As he ran, he felt the pain of his war so far – large holes had been gouged out of his armour, scoring the deep blue finish, while countless chips and scrapes adorned it all-over. His body inside its carapace fared just as poorly. His hearts seemed to pump faster than usual, and he felt a random, flaring pain with every step. But his body was slowly repairing itself, and he was confident he would only grow stronger.

He knew that as soon as he closed upon his enemy all the pain, all the random thoughts, would diminish into obscurity as he turned to war, to destruction. What he was created for.

He ran into a field of burning tanks. Their burnt out carcasses reminding him of the Quadriphant death-plains of Xarxes – every year scores of the ancient beasts would travel across the desert plain to die there, their gigantic bones strewn in the sand, a sad memory of the long life's lived. The tanks were nothing but broken shells, but they would help him hide from his adversaries, and he could prepare to ambush them.

He stopped short, a thought blossoming in his mind like a punch to the face – why could he remember the Xarxes graveyard, and not his name? Somehow, it was important. It was important…

Movement to the left. He ducked down, feeling a slight strain on his knees as he did so – another wound, something to be ignored.

Several of the enemy emerged from the smoky haze, ghostly images as the sun dipped towards the horizon in deep orange hues, while the endless smoke and pollutants from the earlier battle muddied the air. His foe almost looked intimidating in the light, and there were many of them. But the warrior, the killer, in him took control, and he knew no fear.

With a guttural cry, he hit the activation switch on his sword, its teeth rasping to life as they scraped off the dented shaft of the used weapon, while firing his bolt pistol at the his targets, seeing fountains of blood gushing from the direct hits. Many of his enemies died within seconds as he charged from behind a burnt out Leman Russ, emptying the pistols' clip. But the real battle began when he closed with them, bringing his screaming sword to bare…

'_**In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.'**_

_*****_

'_**Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion.'**_

Aspin whispered an old Hive prayer in his mothers ear, the _Emperor protects from thy Dark_, as he gently held her hand, offering what comfort he could. The prayer was the only one he knew. But that was normal for a slum-hive ganger – there really was only one they warmed to. It remembered the Emperors struggle with dark forces, and when the lights of His hive darkened, He battled for light, illuminating every shadow, bringing eternal light.

The sun was sinking from the cloudy sky outside, and Aspin's fears were running wild within him. However, reciting the prayer seemed to quieten the voices in his mind, helping him to think clearer than before.

If more of the Ravagers Army still patrolled the battlefield, they would soon find the hundred or so survivors – they needed to move.

He edged away from his mother, slowly letting go of her hand, and stood stiffly – the hectic few days taking a heavy toll on his muscles – before ducking out of his makeshift refuge. Moments later he found himself looking upon the remaining hivers – they huddled together in groups and stretched out over several hundred metres, clinging to the shadowed husks of troop carriers and one crashed flier. Many of them looked up at him as he exited, some strained form of hope in their faces.

What was he to do? His mother was the real leader, and only genetics and poor luck had put him in charge. Inwardly he curst his luck and immediately felt bad – that was no way to think, it was the cowards way out.

Mai appeared next to him, the lengthy shadows of the evening light obscuring her face momentarily – he still found it hard to adjust to natural light, it didn't feel right to him after spending his life in the deep hives. But the human instinct for survival was stronger than mere familiarity of place.

Sharp barks of weapon fire erupted all-of-a-sudden, Mai's face breaking into panic before him. Seconds later, cries of alarm spread across the survivors' camp, while the dread sounds of gunfire echoed across the otherwise calm evening air.

The enemy had found them, it seemed. Who could save them now?

_We are here_, the voices suddenly whispered in his mind. _We can help._

_We can help…_

'_**All war is deception.'**_

**_Quotes from: _**_Bede Jarrett_**_, _**_games workshop ltd_**_, _**_Calvin Coolidge and __Sun Tzu_

'_**Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.**__**'**_

_Screaming. Throat burning wails. Piteous cries for mercy. All around he hears their final prayers before eternal emptiness will consume them via his barking pistol and jagged sword…_

_They even scream for the Emperor. The Emperor…_

As he cut through the soft flesh of one of his hated enemy, the sharp, serrated teeth of his chainsword eating into their rip cage like an axe into soft, wet wood, he realised why he remembered the barren graveyards of the Quadriphants.

That was the day he saw the God-Emperor for who he really was.

It had been a mighty campaign – his Chapter had fought against horrendous odds to break their enemy, and the final battle, fittingly, played out over the Quadriphant death-plains of Xarxes.

But they lost.

His squad were torn apart, their power armour nothing but wet parchment against the fearsome attacks. And it was then that he knew the mighty God-Emperor of mankind was nothing but a powerless corpse. He had been lied to for centuries. _Centuries!_ There were truer Gods in the universe, the real deities of mankind, and they _listened_ to you!

One of his enemies tried to unload a shotgun on him as he remembered, probably praying to the False-Corpse for a way to kill the mighty immortal cutting through his fellow lowers as he did so, but the shots merely grazed the space marines' armour. In reply, he threw his now-empty bolt pistol at the fool – and he threw it with such force that the gun lodged inches into the humans skull, and blood fountained into the air, as the sun cast its final rays across the broken landscape.

Finally, as he cut a swath of carnage through his enemies, holding his chainsword in two hands, his memories returned, and he started to laugh. He was confused no longer, and the whispering voices he had grown so accustomed to returned within his mind, driving him to further degenerate acts of brutality. They thirsted for his hate, his anger.

His Enemy?

The Emperor of mankind.

Therefore: humanity. The Imperium.

His Chapter… His chapter had just begun, his war was without end, and it was in the name of Chaos.

The humans' retreated from his wrath, as well they should, but he was not to be undone – they were his enemy, and they all needed to die…

'_**Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?'**_

_*****_

'_**The gods, likening themselves to all kinds of strangers, go in various disguises from city to city, observing the wrongdoing and righteousness of men.'**_

The screaming was always first, then the gunfire and that weird noise of panic mixed with death. Aspin could never place that sound – it was on a different plain, a different level of existence. Yet it was also all around him. The Ravagers had returned and attacked the remaining hivers.

The sun was touching the day with its final rays and he found it hard to focus, the dim light messing with his sight. He saw sparks of gunfire over the battlefield, as it illuminated the dead husks of the tanks around him. People were dying. And horribly, he realised they were his people. _His people_. He was left in charge when his mother was wounded. If they all died, it would be his fault – he'd have the gang-oath to deal with. Letting people die was not part of the gang ethos. Not when they're part of your crowd, your people. But know could he fight against the super-human enemy?

_We are here_, a voice said, gripping his mind, _we can help!_

Pain shot through his head, and he felt as if he should give in to the voices – they were listening to him, helping him. Where had his prayers, and his mothers prayers before she lost consciousness, got them? Nothing. Nothing.

_Yes, we will listen and we will save you. The corpse-being can do nothing, we are your salvation._

Temptation drowned him. Could he just answer yes and all his troubles be washed away?

_Yes._

But his mother always taught that it was about hard work, courage. The easy way always had repercussions. If it was too good to be true, it was.

_Lies._

'Aspin, what's wrong?' said a voice, a distant whispering.

_Listen to us, listen!_

No, Aspin thought, I'll listen to me, to Mai, and to my mother. Not the crazy thoughts in my head. He had always been told talking to yourself was the first sign the Inquisitor needed to shot you, and he was the leader now, he needed to be confident in himself, and be in charge. Listening to corrupt voices were for the weak, the touched. Not Aspin Wier.

'Aspin, please,' Mai said. 'What's wrong?'

He broke from the cloud that tried to form around his spirit, and he finally saw the young ganger girl before him. He hadn't realised how good looking she was before, but now he looked upon her with different eyes, more clear, more free.

'Nothing, ' he said. 'Get everyone out of here if they're unarmed. Otherwise get people with weapons to come to me.'

'What?'

'Mai, do it, okay?' Something changed in his voice, an authority was there where once uncertainty reigned. She turned, shouting for others to follow her away.

Then he ran toward the loudest shouting, and the fiercest shooting.

One Ravager was tearing through the survivor's camp, indiscriminately killing as he went. He had blue armour on, but crass blood red crosses covered his ornate insignias – once he was supposed to be a defender of humanity, now he was its butcher.

Aspin knew they had no weapons to kill the beast – its armour was just too much for conventional weaponry, especially hiver frak. Yet, with his clearer mind, he realised that the battlefield graveyard around him may give them a weapon, or even a way to escape.

The young gang leader suddenly saw the Ravager as he tore into the fleeing hivers before him. Aspin joined the retreating crowd momentarily, before he saw possible salvation – one of the smouldering tanks still sported a sponson turret. He recognised it as a stubber. Something able to penetrate the monsters armour.

He parted from the crowd and leapt up over the tanks tracks, and climbed up to the gun, ignoring the dead, stinking body that lay crumpled over the turret position – he was dead, his war ended, there was nothing to do for him. But the living was a different story.

The Ravager appeared out of the gloom, the light finally fading as the sun slipped under the horizon, silhouetting his mighty frame in the dust light. He still held his bloodied chainsword, and laughed manically as he killed.

Aspin looked over the tank's gun, finding a trigger. He aimed the weapon at the Chaos Marine, and hit the activation switch.

Nothing happened. The Marine only moved closer, death in his wake.

'Step aside son,' commanded a familiar voice. 'Step aside.'

Aspin turned from the gun and looked down at his mother. She somehow stood at the bottom of the ruined tank, the blood-soaked wound still evident. But she stood there, strong like her old self, as if the wound was not even there.

The Ravager roared, cutting down the final hivers before the tank.

'Aspin, stand aside.'

Something in his mother voice made him step back from the stubber, and as soon as he did, his mother nimbly jumped up to the turret, and took over the gum.

The Chaos Marine charged at them, crying out in an unknown, ancient language, their sword raised to strike death.

The gun opened fire, ripping into the Marine, forcing him backward, then to the ground in a hideous display. Moments later, the smoking ruin of the marine lay upon the ground, cut into lumps of meat and armour.

Aspin ran to his mother, as she slumped to the hard metal hull of the tank. 'How, ' he gasped, 'I thought you dead, dying?'

'You were strong, my son,' she said. 'You did not give in and He saw this. He saw this and helped.'

'Who?'

'Who do you think?'

It was her last words.

'_**The Emperor Protects.'**_

Quotes by: _Theodore Roosevelt,_****_Friedrich Nietzsche, Homer, and, well, the Emperor…_


End file.
